


Skin Deep

by whitchry9



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Coulson Lives, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Tattoos, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, everyone is broken, what are timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2022006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where tattoos appear on a person's skin throughout their life, occasionally, the Avengers will sit down and compare tattoos, and the stories behind them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edits of the tattoos on the characters can be found in the second chapter, but it's better to read through first, as some tattoos could be considered spoilers.

Written for a prompt, which can be found [here](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19458.html?thread=45587202#t45587202). 

* * *

 

 

Tony hadn't had many tattoos before going to Afghanistan. There was the really awesome one on his left forearm that made him look like half man, half machine, the circuit board peeking out from torn flesh. It looked painful, like his skin was being torn away to reveal what he really was.

It appeared when he graduated from MIT, and was the first major tattoo he had. He wondered what his father would say, but Tony only ever really saw his father when he had to be dressed up, long sleeves, suit jacket, and a tie, and he never did see it before he died.

Before they both died.

He knew that a major loss would often prompt something to appear, whether it was a memorial or just an acknowledgement of their significance in his life.

Nothing ever appeared, and Tony couldn't bring himself to care.

 

He collected a few assorted ones, for every bot he made, a new one appeared, like when people had children. He didn't stop to think what that meant, but whenever he threatened Dum-E, the little robot on his left side itched inexplicably. And whenever Jarvis got really miffed with him, when he used that huffy voice that Tony swore he didn't program him with, the line of binary on his right hip stung.

Really, it was unfair.

 

When he woke up in hell, hell being a cave somewhere in the middle of fucksville, Afghanistan, his chest was a mess of scar tissue, wires, and metal. He would have laughed if it hadn't hurt so much, because finally his outward appearance was actually matching what the tattoos represented.

If Yinsen noted the correlation between the circuitry tattoo on his arm, and the tech in his chest, well, he didn't comment.

And if Tony woke up one morning a few weeks later with a similar tattoo on his shoulder, showing torn away flesh to reveal the gears and metal bones underneath, Yinsen didn't comment then either.

 

When Tony came back from Afghanistan, a swallow appeared under his left shoulder blade. It wasn't labelled, and there were no defining features, but he knew immediately who it was. Yinsen.

He looked it up, of course. Swallows represented souls of the dead.

 

 

Tony wasn't lying about the phoenix metaphor when he told everyone at the Expo.

“... from the ashes of captivity, never has a phoenix metaphor been more personified!”

The phoenix on his stomach spoke for itself.

The lines on his chest told a different story.

 

The lines on his chest weren't tattoos. It took him too long to realize that. Tattoos didn't work like that, growing and changing over time. They'd appear, and they'd change, but they never just kept _spreading._

So it took him a while to realize he was actually dying.

 

He doesn't die, he discovers a new element, and the lines that had begun to creep up his neck faded.

(Tattoos didn't disappear either. You could get rid of them, but they never just vanished on their own.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

Thor wondered if an image of his great Mjolnir would appear on his skin after it was bestowed upon him, but nothing appeared.

He realized later, when they were both thrown to Midgard, why there was no such image. Because he was unworthy.

She did appear eventually, after he fought his brother, and then lost him.

Mjolnir appeared on his thigh, ornately drawn with beautiful lines, reaching from knee to hip, with an elegant script.

Loki's helmet appeared on his hip, tiny and light, but there. Because no matter what Loki had done, Thor still mourned him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Clint has a target in the middle of his back. He thinks it's rather inconvenient, and is practically inviting someone to shoot him.

There's not much he can do about it though.

Natasha suggested it was less to do with him being a target, and more to do with how he always hit what he was aiming for. (The bulls-eye is on his spine, right at the point where it could kill him if anything ever pierced through it..)

 

He also has a sleeve on his right upper arm, an intricate pattern that looks complicated and geometric, but if you look close enough, you can see that it's a series of tiny arrows, threaded together, weaving a pattern. The middle finger on his right hand contains an arrow, broken into three parts, along the middle portion, between the two knuckles. It makes flipping people off that much more enjoyable.

 

After the incident that leaves him deaf (which was before Natasha, but after Coulson, because that's how he measures time, before and after the circus, SHIELD, Coulson, going deaf, Natasha, and the Avengers, because those are the only events in his life that really matter, that he can remember clearly) a tiny tattoo appears on his right wrist. It's simple enough that someone might not recognize it at first glance, but after a closer examination, Clint realizes it's a sign in ASL.

The sign for 'I love you,' which is... odd.

He's not sure who it's meant for, or why it appeared.

But there it was.

 

After both Natasha and Coulson, there's Budapest, and it's a fucking mess. The three of them nearly die, but they don't, and for his trouble, Clint wakes up the morning after they get back to SHIELD with a tree spreading up his left leg. It looks a bit naked, with just a trunk and branches, but the next morning there are roots, and by the next day it has grown leaves. For some reason, he feels like Natasha and Coulson get them too, but they don't say.

 

A year later, when he and Coulson are in bed, Clint confirms his suspicions. Coulson's is on his right leg. What's even more interesting is the arrow on Phil's right upper arm, the one that is an arrow pierced through his flesh, claiming him. _“Mine.”_

It's at that point that he also realized what the one on his wrist means. Because Coulson was there for him, both before and after he lost his hearing. Coulson seems to really like it. But he is most fascinated by the tattoo on Clint's stomach that only appears in the dark, the one that Clint is most ashamed of, because it details a period of his life he's not necessarily proud of.

 

He's wrong though, because he can't even think something like that without the universe wanting to one up him, and after Loki, after Coulson, after the Avengers (because those things all run together, and hurt too much to think about, so he only uses after the Avengers as a term of measurement because it doesn't cause an ache in his chest to think about) he gets a tattoo that he wants to hide from the world.

It's under his left arm, and small, so he could, and no one would ever have to see it, which is good, since he wants to deny its existence even to himself.

Because he was in the circus for a (relatively) long time, and he knows what tarot cards mean, so when he wakes up with the hanged man on his skin, he knows he deserves it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Steve's accelerated healing, his tattoos never fade away. He suspects that whatever process that creates them also renews them on him, since they do occasionally become dimmer before getting restored overnight.

Even with his status as a national icon, the details of his tattoos aren't well known, which is an immense relief to him.

Especially considering he'd never be able to live down the shame and embarrassment if Tony Stark ever found out about the pin up girl on his right arm. It wouldn't make one bit of difference that it was Peggy, and more of a joke between them than anything else, because once Tony had something in his mind, he would never let it go.

(When he goes to see Peggy, she has a tiny swallow on her stomach, decked out in his colours. He knows what swallows mean, and it hurts, because he's reminded again that he wasn't the only one who had to grieve.)

The only tattoo that is public knowledge is the mess of the American flag on his thigh. It's half covered by skin, peering out as though it's part of his very body, and reminds Steve of robots that he sees in movies all the time now. Tony has a few that are similar, and they are so very suiting for him, since the man seems at least half machine.

The other ones are his secret, at least for now, since the other people who knew about them were either friends from Before, or now dead.

Sometimes he thinks the grenade on his stomach aches, and he can hear his own words in his head. _“Is this a test?”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha doesn't have very many tattoos. It's useful in her line of work, being a spy, but it always makes her sad in ways she doesn't quite understand. Before she joins SHIELD, changes sides, she only has one. A tiny purple butterfly on the sole of her left foot. (Sometimes she wonders, if there had been others before, and where they went. Why they don't come back. If they were forcibly taken from her, pieces of her own history that she can never regain. She doesn't wonder very often.)

 

She gets more after Clint, after joining SHIELD.

There are the cherry blossoms that appear after an op in China, and she learns they represent femininity and beauty, and for the first time she feels that her appearance may be something more than just a weapon, something to be proud of.

After the clusterfuck that is Budapest, a tree grows up her side. It takes a few days for it to appear completely, first the trunk and branches appearing, then the roots, and finally the leaves. She knows that Clint gets one as well, and she would suspect so did Coulson. They don't ask her, which is wise of them, because she wouldn't tell.

Clint asks occasionally if she has anymore, but it's never in a way that pressures her.

And she never tells him, but there is a little hawk under her left breast. It sort of faded into existence as she grew to trust him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No one comments on it when Bruce wakes up, naked and exhausted after being on a Hulk bender, but he knows they all see it. The formula on his chest, written backwards so it stares back at him every time he looks into a mirror. The failed super soldier formula that backfired on him so badly that it turned him into a monster.

That's what he thought at the beginning anyway. He destroyed more than a few mirrors that way, but it got better.

 

He doesn't know if Hulk has tattoos, if he has the same as Bruce, or if he has different ones.

Tony never says, and he doesn't ask, because it would turn into an experiment.

 

After the whole New York thing, when Bruce moves into Tony's giant building that he renames the Avenger Tower, he wakes up with a green jellybean just above his bellybutton.

He paused for a moment and looked at it, wondering the significance, until a memory pushes through from the emerald tinged haze, and he recalls being called a green bean.

Interesting.

He wonders what Tony will say, the next time he de-Hulks and there it is. He'll probably be amused.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The team would sometimes sit around comparing tattoos and wondering out loud about reasons behind some of the more vague ones.

 

Tony was surprised to find that Bruce still had his tattoos, even after a transformation.

“Don't you ever wonder about that?” he asked, and Bruce shrugged.

“A bit at first. But honestly, there were more pressing things to worry about, like...”

“If you'd killed someone,” Tony supplied, and everyone else in the room winced, but Bruce nodded.

“I get that,” Tony said quietly.

No one said anything. They didn't need to.

 

Tony spoke first. “What about you Steve? What, with the serum I'd think that they would heal and disappear. Do they?”

Steve shrugged. “Sometimes they fade, like they're going to disappear, but then they're back, just as bright.”

Tony leaned back in his chair. “Huh.” He glanced over at their resident god. “Thor? You got any, or is this just an earth thing?”

“No, tis common across all the realms,” Thor told him, shrugging his cape off.

 

He lifted the back of his armour or whatever it was, no one was really sure, to reveal a storm cloud that trailed lightning across Thor's wide back. The storm cloud sat in the small of his back, and wasn't large, but the lightning that traversed his back was. God of thunder indeed.

“I do not have as many as you,” he said, “I believe it is because of the longer life span.”

Bruce considered that. “So you gain them at the same rate as us, relative to the length of your life?”

Thor nodded. “Verily.” He glanced at his teammates. “What about you, Lady Natasha?”

She glared at him briefly. “I've told you before Thor, don't call me Lady. Natasha will do just fine.”

He bowed his head. “My apologies.”

She tilted her head, an acceptance of his apology.

“I don't have that many,” she admitted. “I only had one before I joined SHIELD. I have a few more now, but the one I like the most is this one.”

Natasha stood up, and pulled down the waistband of her track pants just enough so that the team could see the tattoo on her right upper thigh.

“Awesome,” Tony said, letting out a low whistle.

Clint grinned widely. He'd seen it before, but it never ceased to amaze him. Only Nat would have a tattoo of a gun in a holster strapped against her leg.

Natasha tugged her pants back up, grinning like a cat. “Yep,” she said evenly. “And that's the only one you're going to see.”

Tony grumbled out of obligation, but everyone knew his heart wasn't in it. “I practically bear my soul here, and all you do is show a little skin? Not fair.”

“Tony, you walk around shirtless all the time. It's not our fault that we've seen most of your tattoos,” Bruce pointed out, sighing heavily.

Tony pouted. “Yeah, so. Just cause you've seen them doesn't mean you understood what they meant before now. Just for that, I'm not telling you what the phoenix is from.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Tony, almost everyone knows where the phoenix is from and what it means. That's what happens when you pretty much broadcast it to the world.”

Tony probably would have stuck his tongue out at her if he hadn't been sure that she would have cut it off with one of the many knives she no doubt had on her person. He settled instead for glaring and picking up his tablet pointedly.

 

Natasha looked to the other resident scientist. “So Bruce, you do have them and they stay, but what are they? If you don't mind sharing.”

Bruce smiled in a resigned sort of way. “I do have a new addition,” he told them.

Tony tossed his tablet aside. “Lemme see!”

Bruce rolled his eyes endearingly, but lifted up his shirt to show them the jellybean.

Tony laughed out loud. “Bruce, it's perfect!”

“Is that a green jellybean?” Clint asked, leaning to to get a better look.

Bruce nodded.

At the mention of jellybeans, Thor perked up. “I love jellybeans!” he declared. “Although the Lady Darcy tricked me into eating ones of vile flavour.” He shuddered in remembrance.

Clint glanced at Natasha. “Bertie Botts?”

She nodded. “Most likely.”

 

“What about you, Legolas?” Tony asked, changing the subject before Thor could regale them with a tale of the Lady Darcy and her strangely flavoured foods.

“What about me?” he asked, straight faced.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Any interesting tattoos?”

He shrugged. “I've got a half sleeve. I usually cover it up for missions though. Defining features and all that.”

“Aha!” Tony declared. “So that's why we haven't seen it! I thought it was suspicious that your arms were clean.”

Clint only rolled his eyes, but tugged up the sleeve of his t-shirt, and removed the invisible covering that hid the tattoo.

The rest of the team, minus Natasha who had already seen it, moved in for a better look.

Clint seemed bored at having all of them examining his arm.

“Interesting,” Bruce murmured. “Geometric, but with arrows instead of simple lines. It looks... Samoan?”

Clint looked up, surprised. “Yeah, how did you know?”

Bruce shrugged. “I've been around a lot. Never to Samoa, too small, too... ”

“Island-y?” Tony offered.

Bruce shrugged. “Yeah. But I've seen a lot of people with a lot of different tattoos. I learned to recognize them.” He glanced back to Clint. “Been there?”

“Long time ago,” Clint replied. “After the tattoo, interestingly enough.”

Bruce nodded and sat back, pondering that.

 

“Steve?” Clint asked. “You got anything you wanna tell us? Sharing is caring!” he added cheerfully, leaving the covering for his tattoo gathered around his elbow.

Steve scratched his head. “I have the New York skyline across my stomach. The 1940s one though, not the modern one.”

Tony let out a noise of disapproval, obviously disappointed that his building wasn't included in that.

Steve rolled his eyes.

 

Thor's phone rang at that moment, cheerfully singing out 'Single Ladies'.

He jumped up. “Lady Darcy beckons me friends. I must excuse myself.”

No one dared to argue as he accepted the call with a sweep of one of his enormous fingers across the screen.

“Lady Darcy!” he greeted loudly. “Of course, my apologies. I do remember,” he continued at a lower volume. “How does my Lady Jane fare?”

His voice faded as he moved down the hallways and into the elevator.

“Remind me to never answer a phone call from Thor,” Clint said to the room at large. “I don't want to be entirely deaf.”

Tony snorted.

At that, Natasha rose a single perfect eyebrow, and turned to Clint, signing rapidly.

Tony attempted to follow along to no avail.

“Not fair,” he pouted. “Too fast.”

Natasha only shrugged before they both got up and left.

 

Bruce appeared to notice he'd regained his freedom from enforced 'team building' and muttered something about a time sensitive experiment before scurrying back to his lab.

Then it was just Steve and Tony.

 

Steve hesitated before sitting down next to Tony, who had returned to madly pecking at his tablet. “I was just wondering...” he began, trailing off as he lost the nerve.

Tony glanced up. “Yeah?” he asked, turning the tablet off, which meant the conversation was serious.

Steve blushed. “What does the phoenix mean? Do you know?”

Tony nodded. “It's actually like, the perfect metaphor,” he beamed. “A phoenix is a fictional bird, hey, have you read or seen Harry Potter yet?”

Steve shook his head, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“We'll watch it later, there's a phoenix in it,” Tony explained. “Anyway, it's this bird that has a really long lifespan, because when it dies, it's simply reborn from the ashes. It burns up and then is born in the ashes. It's pretty bad ass if you think about it, and it's super cool. Gorgeous too, in the movie anyway.”

Steve hesitated. “So how is it perfect for you?”

Tony frowned slightly, and Steve wondered if he'd hit a nerve.

“Wow, you really don't look us up on the internet do you?” He continued without waiting for a response. “Cause if you had, you would know I sort of did this speech already. At the Expo, while kind of dying, but hey, we're all dying, right?”

Steve nodded slightly as Tony continued.

“But basically, I was reborn in Afghanistan, in that cave. I burned up; the other me, the me I was before, he died in that cave. And from the ashes, someone new was born. Someone who was Iron Man, and less of a dick, and generally a better person. Didn't get a younger body, but hey, it's not a perfect metaphor.” He shrugged.

Steve frowned, but nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Tony glanced up at him. “What about you? Do you have any that might need explaining? Share for a share and all that.”

Steve hesitated. He knew that he didn't have to, and Tony would accept it with only the slightest bit of teasing, because it was a private thing. But Tony had been honest with him, so Steve figured it was the least he could do.

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded, sitting down next to Tony on the couch.

“Have you seen the tattoo on my shoulder and arm?” he asked, knowing that Tony hadn't.

Tony shook his head.

Steve hesitated when thinking how to best show it, because he was certainly not taking his shirt off. Nope. There were other things Tony did not need to see. Like his right arm.

He settled for rolling up his left sleeve to near his shoulder, revealing most of the tattoo of the train track.

Tony looked to Steve, asking permission before running his fingers over it.

“The end of the line,” he said, reading the text that was on the tunnel entrance. “What does that mean?”

Steve blushed. “It was something that Bucky would say to me. It was a thing between us. 'I'm with you til the end of the line.'” He shrugged. “Bucky...” his voice broke. “Bucky died, falling from a train. I got it just after.”

Tony winced. “I'm sorry,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I've... I've got a swallow,” he offered. Steve knew what it meant.

“For... Howard?”

Tony shook his head, something dark falling across his eyes for a minute. “No, not for him. For someone else that I lost. More recently.”

Steve nodded.

“But hey, you know that the train tracks are going into a tunnel, right? It's not then end of the track. It's just the end of what you can see.”

Steve mulled over that for a minute. “What are you trying to say Tony?”

He thought about it, and shrugged. “I honestly don't know,” he admitted.

 

Tony leaves shortly after, and Steve is left alone on the couch, tracing the tracks on his arm and wondering what it could mean.

 

(When the Winter Soldier attacks, months later, and Steve finally realizes it's Bucky, he feels a desperate sort of hope he hadn't felt since he woke up in the fake hospital room. When they bring him in not long after the mess in Washington, Steve sees the tattoo on Bucky's arm and breaks down crying. Because on Bucky's right arm, the one that's still flesh and blood, a train track tattoo begins at the point where Steve's ends. The text on the tunnel reads 'With you til', and is continued on Steve's. Tony is smugly pleased, even though he really had no clue either. Steve doesn't even mind.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

Clint's still adjusting to the idea of Coulson being not dead, and every time he wakes up in the night, he still thinks it's a dream, or a nightmare, that Phil is lying beside him.

After one particularly bad awakening, when Phil held him as he cried softly into his chest, he whispered, more to himself than anyone else “I don't deserve you.”

Coulson stilled at that, and Clint felt like he had to explain. Neither of them had been shirtless since before (the Avengers), Coulson because of the scar, and Clint because he didn't want Coulson to see the new tattoo.

“Look,” he insisted, sitting up, hoping his eyes weren't too red as he turned on the lamp.

He tugged his shirt off over his head, and held his arm up for Phil to see. “I don't deserve you,” he insisted.

Phil traced his fingers over the newest additions to Clint's skin.

“It's beautiful,” he said quietly.

Clint flinched away. “No, it's not. It's awful and painful and a reminded of everything I did that hurt all of you.”

Phil's face fell. “Oh Clint...” he sighed.

“Do you know what it means Phil? Because I do. The hanged man. It represents a traitor being punished.” He tugged away from Phil's arm bitterly. “I'm being punished.”

Phil sighed again, but it wasn't his usual 'you are everything wrong with the world' sigh, and instead was more of 'you're an adorable idiot' sigh that other people seldom got to hear.

Clint glared at him. “What?” he demanded. “What do you know that I don't?”

Phil tugged him closer and ran his fingers over the image again. “That is what the image is of,” he began, his fingers ghosting over Clint's side. “But it's not the meaning or interpretation of it when it comes to tarot card reading.”

Clint glanced sideways at him. “What do you know about tarot cards?”

“More than enough. Now hush.” He pressed a kiss against Clint's mouth to shut him up before continuing. “It can mean sacrifice, acceptance, contemplation. It's also connected to divinity, because of how much it looks like a crucifixion. But the folk lore, and you'll have to ask Thor about this, is that Odin hung upside down for nine days from the world tree, Yggdrasil, to attain wisdom. Also, apparently he retrieved runes from a well which were considered the source and end of all sacred mystery and knowledge. The runes killed him, but the knowledge of them was so powerful he was brought back to life.” He pressed a kiss to Clint's side as he finished. “So what do you think of that?”

Clint considered it. “Hanging upside down for nine days sounds like a really stupid thing to do, but hey, Asgardians, so it could be true.”

Phil nodded. “Like I said, you'll have to ask Thor.”

Clint smiled. “You talk the talk, certainly, but it doesn't change what I did.”

“You did nothing,” Phil said firmly. “It wasn't your fault. And besides,” he began, unbuttoning his pyjama shirt with one hand. “I like that we match,” he whispered, letting the shirt pool around his waist.

Both the scar and the tattoo were clearly visible, and both hurt him, just in different ways. He ignored the scar, simply tracing his fingers across it in order to get to the tattoo.

“The fool?” Clint asked, one eyebrow raised.

Phil shrugged. “There's more to the meaning than meets the eye,” he said simply.

“I bet there is,” Clint said, pulling Phil back down to lie on his pillow.

Clint wrapped his arms around him, his one hand falling to rest on the scar.

“Feel better now?” Phil whispered.

Clint held up his right wrist as a response, and he could feel Phil smile.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Stark. (There were no good pictures of him from Iron Man, shirtless, so I had to take one from Sherlock Holmes.)

 

Thor and his lightning tattoo. (Did a mjolnir, but never got around to putting it on him, because hello, show us your thighs Chris.)

 

Featuring Clint’s front. (The glow in the dark one is currently not glowing, obviously.)

 

The ASL ‘I love you’ on his wrist.

 

Coulson, pre-Avengers (and scar and tarot card).

 

Steve, because yes, thank you, at least one person was easy to find half nude (more than half?), because it was surprisingly hard.

 

Natasha!  ~~We’re going to ignore the fact that she has a scar on her left abdomen, cause sure we can pretend the tree covers it, shut up.~~

 

And as a bonus, Bucky, because I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give myself feels. Original edit by give-me-a-scotch. They added the metal arm to the picture of Sebastian Stan.

 

And Bruce. Yeah, no, sorry. It was hard, because then I’d have to make up the formula he used, and nope. Also, Mark Ruffalo has insane amounts of chest hair, and there is no editing in that. Sorry.

 


End file.
